J. Willard Marriott grew up poor, bartered his way through college, and started a soda stand with his wife. When it flopped in winter, she learned Mexican cooking and added food. That pivot turned into a catering business, then a hotel empire. Both invested in skills they didn't have.
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Welcome to another Famous Friday. I believe that whatever goal you have, whatever obstacles are in your way, somebody has already solved it. And instead of trying to figure out everything for yourself, the fastest way to accomplish your goal is to model the success of people who've done it and apply their strategies to your business. So today's lesson is invest in yourself from J. Willard Marriott, who's the founder of the Marriott Hotel chain. Now, he, he's built an empire worth billions, but he came from very humble humble beginnings. He was the son of a poor sheepherder. So his dad herded sheep for a living, and all he knew was poverty. Growing up around him, all he knew was poverty and just barely getting by. As part of the Mormon tradition, J. Willard had to go and be a missionary, and he left his home and traveled across the United States being a missionary for the Mormon tradition. And when he came back, he found that his father had lost his business. That he ran out of money, the economy had collapsed, and his father and all the other sheep herders were put out of business, and he was back to absolute poverty. And this is a really important time in J. Willard's life because up until that point, he was following in his father's footsteps, right? He learned about the sheep, he was set to take over raising the sheep, he became a missionary just like his dad. He came home and he didn't want that life anymore. He didn't want to live in poverty for the rest of his life, and he decided that the way to break free was to invest in himself. He had to invest in himself to gain the knowledge, to know what to do, to gain the ideas to break out of the situation that he was in right now. He decided, "I'm going to go to college." There was one problem though. He didn't have money to go to college. He had nothing. He was completely broke. So he went to talk to the president of the college, and he said, "I'd love to take the courses. I want to invest myself to break out of my situation." I'd like to trade you. If you give me tuition to let me come into your school for free, I will teach your theology classes. He leveraged the only thing that he had invested himself in before, the only thing that he knew, the knowledge that could benefit other people, and he struck that deal. And the president said yes. J. Willard was starting to rise. At the community college, he met his future wife, and he started his first business. And you may think of J. Willard Marriott as the hotel chain empire guy, but he started off in the food business. He started off selling soda drinks. And he started this business selling soda drinks in the summer. The problem was it did great in the summer, but then failed in the winter, because nobody wanted to come and buy soda drinks in the winter. And all of the soda drink companies, the soda fountain companies that set up, were closing their doors in the winter. 'Cause nobody could get the customers to come in. And the business started to change when his wife realized that she had invested in herself too and could leverage that to help the business. She had an interest in cooking and she had gone to the Mexican embassy to learn how to cook Mexican food. And she said, "Why don't we bring food to this business so we're not just selling soft drinks?" And she leveraged their recipes and brought Mexican beef sandwiches and tamale and chili And now this business started to take off, and they opened up multiple locations. Soon they had another one, and another one, and another one, and they had 8 different locations. Then Marriott got into supplying food for the airline industry, and then from there he saw all the travelers and said, "Hey, we should open up some hotels," and he created a multi-billion dollar business. But it all started from nothing. He had literally nothing. The poor son of a sheepherder who had gone bankrupt, and that was his life. That was what he was destined to become. And the change happened when he stood up and decided to invest in himself, and when his wife decided to invest in herself and apply that to their business. That's the difference between being a poor sheepherder and a billionaire entrepreneur. So if you're stuck, you're not seeing momentum, you're not seeing growth, you think you should be way up here but you're way down here, you have to invest in yourself. You have to learn the ideas, the knowledge, the tools, get access to the resources in here, and it could turn you into a billionaire entrepreneur as well. Believe. If you guys like this video, subscribe to the channel, see more just like it. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you soon. Don't forget to click here to subscribe to my newsletter to get actionable, inspiring, motivational, believe advice every single week to your inbox.
Hi, I'm Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.com, and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to, period.
